Wine and spirits vendors can once again ask the state for permission to sell their hard-to-find products in Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has lifted its two-week hold on new submissions to the state’s “special liquor order” catalog, an application moratorium that was installed Jan. 8 due to a months-long backlog of pending items.
The stoppage was supposed to run through the end of January.
But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the backlog, and the moratorium, Thursday morning; by afternoon, the hold had been lifted. The goal of shutting down the application process was to allow the PLCB to clear out the backlog.
But “based on feedback from our stakeholders, we are immediately lifting the temporary hold on new ‘Special Liquor Order’ submissions,” Dale E. Horst, PLCB director of marketing and merchandising, told wine and spirits vendors by email Thursday.
“We understand how important the SLO program is for our licensees, our vendors and our consumers. We apologize for the negative impact that hold may have had. While the backlog exists, we are working to address the situation by committing even more resources to alleviating it.”
The PLCB lost two of its four SLO data entry employees last summer and has been running behind ever since. The shutdown was largely invisible to state store shoppers, who generally buy well-known, high-volume wine and spirits off the shelf.
But for small wine vendors, and those in the hospitality industry, the shutdown was more evident. That’s because restaurants that specialize in extensive wine lists and curated spirits selections order SLO products, rather than off the shelf.
For every wine or spirit that is “listed” by the PLCB, and widely available on liquor store shelves, there are many more that are available for purchase only through the agency's “special order” process: There are about 1,800 “regular” spirits products that are available for sale directly through the state’s wine and spirits stores and online — but more than 3,000 are available through the special order process.
And while there are 2,400 high-volume “regular” wines, there are nearly 40,000 wines and annual vintages available only through the special order process.
But before those SLO wines and spirits can be sold to buyers, they must first be reviewed, and approved, by the state. It’s a process that used to take a few weeks, according to vendors, but now takes several months. And small vendors who don’t represent high-volume wines and spirits rely on the special liquor order process for much, if not all, of their sales traffic.
“It was good to see a quick reaction,” said Kevin Joyce, owner of The Carlton Restaurant on Grant Street. He is also chairman of the government affairs committee of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association. He’s also a member of the PLCB’s wine and spirits advisory council.
While small wine vendors have been most impacted by the SLO slowdown, restaurateurs are affected too, he said.
“When you’re trying to plan a wine dinner, it does affect you. You can’t bring in product around the LCB. You have to go through them,” Mr. Joyce said. “I tasted four wines in the last two weeks that are wines I want to buy, but I can’t get yet, because the codes can’t get” written into the state catalog.
On Wednesday, before the stay was lifted, Mr. Horst said the PLCB is planning to install a system that allows for greater automation of application processing, which could help to alleviate future delays.
First Published: January 23, 2015, 2:21 p.m.
Updated: January 24, 2015, 3:46 a.m.
